


This is why I sojourn here

by acaramelmacchiato



Series: Thranduil and Bard get married [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Balrogs, Contracts, M/M, Married Couple, Spiders, a place called wetwang, legolas digs in on the keynesianism, minor appearance of the laketown band, the continued dadventures of married dads thranduil and bard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 14:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3212987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The continued adventures of Bard and Thranduil, recently married-to-each-other nonsingle dads. Bard gets sued. Thranduil tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is why I sojourn here

 

 

Lake-Town’s mail service, now diverted to Dale, had remained relatively unchanged despite the town’s destruction by a dragon. Bard -- an orphan, then a widower, and as curt in reputation as he was in person -- was never a popular correspondent.

 

So he was surprised when Sigrid urgently shuffled him from his office to get the mail.

 

“Just put it on my chair,” said Bard. “I’ll read it later.”

 

“There’s dwarves here with it,” said Sigrid, and her eyes moved nervously to the stairs. “And they’re not leaving.”

 

Bard turned sharply down the stairs and found three liveried dwarves of Erebor in his kitchen, sober and composed.

 

“What do you mean by this,” Bard said, instead of greeting them. “Announce yourselves now, or go.”

 

They bowed stiffly to him, and the eldest spoke: “I am Gror son of Fror, and not his brother, lately of the Iron Hills and presently of Erebor. With me are two companions of the king’s guard, and we are at your service. Have we come to the home of Bard the Bowman of Lake-town and Dale, Royal Consort to the King Thranduil of the Northern Wood?”

 

“Without invitation,” said Bard, sharing an unhappy look with Sigrid.

 

“For which we are sorry,” said Gror without much sincerity, and took from a new leather wallet a book of documents and a portable inkpot. “You must sign here to confirm that you, and no other, received this document,” he indicated where with his pen after he wet it, and Bard, out of bewilderment more than anything else, signed.

 

“What is it?” he asked, when Gror ripped off the sheet bearing his signature and put the pen away wet.

 

Gror bowed again. “That is not for me to explain. Correspond on your own with my king, Dain the second of that name, to make your complaint.”

 

And then the dwarves left.

 

Bard looked at the book of papers in his hands.

 

_PURSUANT to the contract and treaty undertaken by Bard of Lake-town and Dale and the late King Under the Mountain, Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror, Dain II Ironfoot, Lord of Erebor and the Iron Hills, paid on the date of January the 15 th the sum of 500,000 gold pieces fulfilling obligations in the treaty expressed and witnessed below. _

_Finding Bard of Lake-town and Dale in violation of this treaty and terms of that payment, expressed and witnessed below, this letter serves as formal notice that Dain II Ironfoot intends to collect the sum of 500,000 gold pieces as a debt, as well as any accrual to that sum incurred after January 15 th, the date of payment, or equitable relief._

_Failure by Bard of Lake-town and Dale to remit within 10 days from the witnessed receipt of this notice will result in a levy of compounding debt to be carried out in trade sanctions. Please find below the initial treaty and contract inclusive of explanation of defect._

_The foregoing shall not be considered a complete recitation of defect nor shall it be considered to waive or relinquish Dain II Ironfoot’s legal rights or remedies hereby expressly reserved, including other remedies against Bard of Lake-town and Dale, including but not limited to the recovery of costs and fees related to collection and notice of remittance._

“Dain is suing me,” said Bard at dinner.

 

“Is he,” said Thranduil. “How interesting.”

 

 

\---

 

Trouble, men say, comes in threes.

 

For Bard it had always come in increments of four or more, so he was on edge.

 

The week before Dain announced his intent to collect, the nation of Gondor, which held the sum in bonds, predicted a winter grain shortage.

 

The Treasurer of the Steward of Gondor wrote to Bard immediately, and when the letter arrived a week later Bard felt himself start to sweat despite the cold.

 

“These things always resolve themselves,” said Thranduil, lightly, when Bard mentioned it for the fifth time. “Wait them out a few hundred years and -- oh.”

 

Bard put his head in his hands.

 

\---

 

Thranduil proposed a trip to his country residence.

 

“You seem very agitated,” he explained to Bard after he’d started to pull his own hair out.

 

“My people will be attacked by dwarves.”

 

“Nonsense,” said Thranduil, yawning. “They will be _sanctioned_ by dwarves. You will find out the difference soon enough.”

 

“Sanctions will _kill us_ ,” Bard reiterated. They had been revolving slowly around the same four or five points for hours, during which Bard had refused to leave the king’s tepidarium. Thranduil was falling asleep on and off, nude and dewy instead of sweating, on a marble chaise covered with a spider pelt, while Bard paced around with a tight hold on his flannel.

 

“Wait them out,” said Thranduil, gesturing for Bard to come closer to him and take the gilt-and-glass water pipe they were using to inhale a fine strain of pipeweed. “And come away with me.”

 

Bard drew a long breath in, and the water pipe bubbled soothingly. He stilled for a second, appreciating the quality of the smoke, and then spoke. “I only have nine more days,” he said, his voice taut. “So I can vacation once I’m dead.”

 

“Yes, I suppose _you_ can do whatever you want when you’re dead, but why not vacation before then?”

 

“It’s irresponsible,” he said, and handed the water pipe to Thranduil.

 

Thranduil lifted himself on his elbows to communicate an expression of frank incomprehension at Bard. “It’s what?”

 

\---

 

The trouble was that the original contract had been undertaken in haste by Bard as a private citizen, and Thorin Oakenshield in the plural of majesty.

 

This remained legal until Bard had gotten married to a monarch with sovereign control over his treasury, and Thranduil had generously agreed to an equal division of the marital assets.

 

Which Bard had not anticipated when he scribbled what looked like his name at Clause 23, _The undersigned shall not, except in trade, allow any portion of the payment to be spent, used, accessed, obtained, monetized, or invested in singularly or mutually, by the Elves of Mirkwood._

 

He was in obvious violation, taken in blazing, and it was becoming more and more clear that he couldn’t pay. For a long minute Bard thought about escaping into the mountains.

 

He thought of his children.

 

He was too responsible to do it.

 

With seven days left to pay he consulted with Alfrid, who was an acknowledged degenerate and therefore might be able to help him weasel his way out of debt.

 

“You need to escape in the night; disappear,” Alfrid said, in a tone of almost avuncular calm. “I understand. Just listen to me, and no worries, we’ll have you out of here dressed as a fish, you can join the army, easy peasy.”

 

“No, I need to pay,” said Bard.

 

“Or get a divorce.”

 

He hadn’t thought of that. 

 

\---

  

“No,” said Thranduil, when immediately after intercourse Bard brought up the idea of divorce. “That sounds like a bad reason. I won’t be bullied into divorce by Dain, remember he rides a pig into battle.”

 

“I think you can see how a horse would be impractical,” said Bard.

 

He was running out of options.

  

\---

 

“You’re not going to like my idea,” said Legolas, with the premature defensiveness of someone whose ideas were never liked.

 

“I’m desperate,” said Bard.

 

“Then, listen to this: You’ve got to issue a sovereign debt.”

 

Bard stared at him. “I don’t like it,” he said, and because his instinct was to storm out of the room, he remained.

 

“I admit you’re not coming from the strongest position, but even Dain will finance it, because it makes him more money than sanctions will. Mirkwood, obviously, and Gondor if it can be put against the bonds you hold.” 

 

“I won’t do it. These debts can last generations -- Gondor could not pay down even half --”

 

“That’s not true,” said Legolas. “Gondor’s credit rating means it won’t ever have to.”

 

“There is another way,” said Thranduil, gliding into the room in gilded dishabille.

 

Bard turned around, silently. Legolas dropped his proposal on the table with whispered curse of annoyance.

 

“Another way?”

 

“The dettesbane plant, which grows only in the swampy and inaccessible lowlands of Wetwang, can cancel any debt. But it is guarded, by a balrog who is neither a borrower nor a lender! The legends of my people say that the balrog must be indebted to you before the herb may be collected.”

 

Bard stared.

 

Legolas left the room.

 

“How quickly can one get to Wetwang,” Bard demanded, putting his body in the way of the dry bar to keep Thranduil’s attention.

 

“Oh, only a few days, on the back of my stag,” Thranduil said, after no time at all thinking about it.

 

“A few days -- less than three? I have seven days left.”

 

“Two, I imagine,” said Thranduil.

 

“I’m going.”

 

Thranduil maneuvered noiselessly around Bard and began mixing himself a drink.

 

“I shall go,” said Thranduil. “It would be a risk for you, and I’ve slain a balrog or two in my time.”

 

“And I a dragon,” Bard said stoutly.

 

“Lucky then that this isn’t a dragon,” Thranduil said, and handed Bard a low-sided glass with a clear spirit in it. “Or I’d need you.”

 

Bard felt his eyes narrow as he considered replying.

 

Instead he merely showed up early the next morning, outfitted both to travel and slay something as immortal and brutal as a balrog.

 

“Of course I knew you were coming,” said Thranduil, having already secured Bard’s longbow, his arrows and his raincoat to the stag’s saddlebags. “I crave your forgiveness for teasing you, only one must amuse oneself somehow, among the uncounted years.”

 

“Well don’t do it again,” said Bard, as he mounted up behind Thranduil on the stag.

 

\--

 

It turned out that the balrog guardian of the fabled dettesbane plant had as good an understanding of Bard’s situation as he did.

 

 _Bard of Lake-town,_ it said in its ruinous voice, a voice of deafening war fire, a voice of the shadows of death, in so terrible a register that the ground shook. _You’re in quite a pickle._

 

Bard shouldered up his quiver and shouted back at it. “I have come to collect the herb in that cave! Surely you have no need for it.”

 

 _I do_ , the balrog’s voice crackled and roared back at him, and when the earth shook again Bard fell to his knees. _I guard it_.

 

“They’re not totally the smartest creatures,” Thranduil whispered to Bard, helping him up.

 

“And long may you continue to do so!” Bard shouted through the cracking air. The heat of the creature blew as strong as wind, and even Thranduil’s hair was disrupted by it. “I only need a little bit, but quickly, may we have it?”

 

 _I will not lend you the herb_ , said the demon in flaming thunder. _I do not lend._

 

Thranduil raised his eyebrows, surprised as Bard was that the legend of the Balrog of Wetwang was so specifically correct.

 

“Then may I buy it?” Bard tried again.

 

 _You are in debt,_ said the balrog. _What have you to spend!_ And then it laughed in a fury of pyrotechnics, and Bard and Thranduil dove to the ground.

 

Crackling with heat at the movement, the balrog took a step toward them, and then another.

 

\---

 

“It was a very good shot,” said Thranduil, as they hurtled out of Wetwang as quickly as his stag could take them. “I’m surprised it didn’t do the trick.”

 

Bard leaned forward, holding tight to his handful of herbs. His left elbow was held straight away from his body, bearing the searing burn from the balrog’s whip when they had discovered it was not, in fact, totally or even partially dead.

 

“It’s a demon,” said Bard, miserably. “Not a dragon. I was a fool to think the Black Arrow could slay what has haunted the earth since its creation.”

 

“Maybe if you’d used a little more force,” said Thranduil.

 

\---

 

With one day left to pay, Bard rode out to the stone front gate of Erebor, alone but for the company of a trumpeter of Lake-town and one of his neighbors who had a very loud voice.

 

The trumpet summoned Dain’s armored guard to the ramparts, and Bard’s neighbor started shouting:

 

“His Majesty Dain Ironfoot the Second, Lord of the Iron Hills and King Under the Mountain of Erebor! Here comes my noble lord Bard the Bowman of Lake-town and Dale, who slew the dragon Smaug to free your riches, who fought in the Battle of Five Armies, and almost slew the Balrog of Wetwang, here to honor his debt!”

 

By this time Dain himself was on the wall.

 

“And have you brought payment, Bard of Lake-town?”

 

Bard cleared his throat, and shouted back. “Your majesty, I have brought you seven stems of the dettesbane plant, which according ancient rite and long observance, can cancel any debt! I have obtained this herb at such risk, my lord, that I am glad to have my life and make amends!”

 

Dain disappeared from the ramparts for a moment, to take counsel from his advisors. Then he popped back up.

 

“You brought me a weed?”

 

“I brought you the fabled, guarded, inaccessible dettesbane plant,” said Bard.

 

“You are bewildered,” Dain shouted at him, “if you think you will fool me with that! We dwarves do not value euphoric weeds like you do! Have you come with nothing else?”

 

Bard stood his ground, shocked, while he thought.

 

_The undersigned shall not, except in trade, allow any portion of the payment to be spent, used, accessed, obtained, monetized, or invested in singularly or mutually, by the Elves of Mirkwood._

 

And Thranduil had legal rights to half of all he possessed, as he himself had the reciprocal right. Until the previous week, he had been the gainer in every way.

 

He looked at the ground, looked at the trumpeter who was holding his instrument in both hands like he might need to run.

 

And then Bard called back up to the King Under the Mountain: “It is a gesture of goodwill,” he said, without faltering. “For King Thranduil has sold me precisely the value of 250,000 pieces of gold in this exact herb!”

 

“Has he then,” said Dain, looking down at him. He waved a hand. “Send over the receipts, and we’ll have no more quarrel.”

 

Bard felt himself smile with relief and rare gratitude. “I am happy we could reach an agreement so amicably!” he said.

 

“But lay off it, for your own sake,” Dain called on his way back into the mountain.

 

\---

 

“So, that’s that,” said Bard. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

 

“I feel that I have not struck a good deal, when I was absent during this transaction,” Thranduil told him, looking at the drying pile of what may have in fact been only weeds. “But I regret that the plant did not work. Maybe if you’d eaten it...”

 

“No,” said Bard.

 

Thranduil lifted his eyebrows. “I am so happy to have married you,” he said. “You keep the days interesting, with all your problems, in such a way as they have never been. Come away with me to the country, and let this disgusting burn on your arm recover.”

 

He braced a thumb on Bard’s cheek, and leaned forward to kiss him, while Bard thought that Thranduil’s problems were probably even more amusing than his own.

 

“Now that the crisis has passed,” he agreed. “Maybe I would like the country. I have never seen it.”

 

\---

 

Bard did not like the country.

 

Or at least he did not like the snow-covered lodge in the pines of the northern forest, where Thranduil presented him with snowshoes and stewards brought him hot wine on his arrival.

 

It was beautiful, glittering and untouched amid a long winter, with fires in the hall and the antlers of generations of Thranduil’s stags tangled in candelabras. There were sculptures of flawless blue ice from frozen waterfalls amid the pines, one unfinished which had clearly been intended to show Bard slaying a balrog. The pines were meager enough in the altitude that light entered the forest easily.

 

For a moment only, it was romantic and lovely enough that Bard regretted leaving his children with Legolas, who was no doubt teaching them falsities of economics.

 

But then the magic thinned.

 

“You did not tell me your lodge was called Spider Hall,” said Bard, thirty minutes into their arrival, leaning hard on the closed and bolted doors of the bedroom.

 

“It is so named for all of the spiders,” said Thranduil, peaking through the keyhole.

 

“As I now realize! How is this habitable?”

 

“My stewards slay them every morning, and twice during the night,” Thranduil explained. “But my long absence has apparently installed them in the bedroom.”

 

Thranduil handed him a spare sword, and Bard leaned back from the deadbolt to prepare an assault.

 

Before he did, he put a hand on Thranduil’s arm. “Yours are not the only days made interesting by our union,” he said seriously, and after taking in Thranduil’s beatific acceptance of the compliment he raised his sword. “On three.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Dwarven process servers are very effective and sought after throughout middle earth because they kill you if you don't sign  
> 2\. Married Dad Bard still lives at his own place a lot of the time because he doesn't want his kids going to Mirkwood parties where you know shit gets weird  
> 3\. lol what's a "gold piece" worth? say three dollars and adjust for inflation, who the hell knows.  
> 4\. What sanctions can dwarves levy? GOLD SANCTIONS. Dragon insurance sanctions. Stone???? necklace sanctions.  
> 5\. Oddly enough, the bonds issued by the Stewards of Gondor stopped existing in record after the return of the king, coinciding happily with a lightening of the national debt  
> 6\. it's a bong they're smoking a bong  
> 7\. round 7 of socialist bard vs. not socialist legolas DING  
> 8\. wetwang is a real place i can't stress this enough it's CANONICAL PLACE APPARENTLY  
> 9\. the Balrog of Wetwang weirdly did not make it into the books  
> 10\. joke's on Bard the weed's worthless


End file.
